How He Does It
by catfoxy
Summary: Another mission completed, the team is on their way back home. They're being flown back in a small, private jet, and in the quiet after all the stress of the mission, Jane happens to be watching Ethan. Wanna know what she sees? Click to read .. ;-l  ..


_Author's Note: I guess I'm repeating myself, but those other two stories… *sighs*… are _still_ on hold. LOL _

_However, I was informed by one particularly nice feedback (thanks! *big hug* :o), that I may let the other stories rest some longer, if I come up with other little 'gems' in the meantime. Well, I don't know if this is a 'gem', but it's what I came up with today on the way home. If you like it, you know what to do – the feedback button is waiting for you right at the end of the story. ;)_

_Summary:_

_Another mission completed, the team is on their way back home. They're being flown back in a small, private jet, and in the quiet after all the stress of the mission, Jane happens to be watching Ethan. Here is what she sees:_

**How he does it**

The plane was taking them home. It was a procedure they had been through a million times, or so it felt. Jane was trying to come down from the high of the mission, trying to find a comfortable position in her seat to perhaps sleep a little, but unlike most other times, she wasn't able to. Her thoughts were still racing.

It had been a close call. They almost hadn't come out of this as a complete team. Benji would never look at a knife the same way. And they had very nearly lost Ethan.

Now, at 10.000 feet above the ground, all that seemed so far away, safely in the past. Over. Done with. No longer a concern.

But in the quiet of the cabin, with Benji and Brandt having decided to crash in their respective bunks in the back, and Ethan sitting in his seat across from her, Jane couldn't stop thinking about what almost happened to them.

She found herself watching Ethan sleeping upright in his seat. His head was comfortably resting against the pillow of his headrest. His eyes were closed, his facial expression relaxed in sleep.

She wondered how he could still look so…innocent.

In sleep, his face showed no signs of the violence in his life, or the things he's had to do to survive. No inkling of the pain in his heart, or the joy, or any of the memories that sometimes could be seen reflected in his eyes. They were closed now, relaxed in sleep, an invisible shield against the reality around him, giving him a release from having to appear strong, invincible, the leader of the team.

It was the price he paid for the life he had chosen. The life as an agent. And not just any agent. One of the best the IMF ever had.

She watched him as he was sleeping. Resting. Recuperating from their latest mission.

Once again, he'd almost been killed. She didn't dare start counting how often it had been now.

Just due to a mixture of skill, luck and pure Ethan Hunt – he'd survived. Again.

How many more times this would work, she didn't know. But she knew Ethan would not stop. Could not be anyone else than who he was.

She saw him move his head slight, slightly turning further into the pillow, his eyes now moving under the closed eyelids.

She wonders what he's dreaming. If he's even dreaming anymore. Or if it was all nightmares. The people he's lost. The sacrifices he's had to make.

And still he managed to put on that smile, every day.

She wondered how much even brighter his smile must have been, before he had become the man he was now, the man that she knew as her team leader. Or maybe his smile hadn't been brighter. Maybe it just had been less of a mask at times, less an effort to keep the smile on his face when the chips were down.

You didn't do what they did for a living and not be affected. But still he smiled. Still he found joy in what he did. What little there was, he took it and took it to the max, needing it like the air to breathe, to keep going, to stem the darkness that everyone of them had in them to make it in this line of work.

She watched him sleep, noticing how his breathing seemed to be easier now.

Easier than it had been just hours ago. When he'd had a gun to his head and an arm around his throat, being strangled by some madman who'd taken them all by surprise.

It had been a simple observation job. Brandt had been backup, on a neighbouring roof that adjoined to the one Ethan and Benji were on – just three levels lower. Jane was half a floor up to their right, ready to scout ahead into the building. But as they were preparing to infiltrate the location, none of them knew they were being watched themselves. And they didn't know that their watchers had singled out Ethan as their main target.

When they suddenly found themselves under attack, Ethan had been fast, reacting instantly, taking down two of the attackers, before he had been overpowered – but only due to the fact, that he had let up, because he'd seen that a fourth man had just put a knife to Benji's throat, threatening to use it.

In the end, they had been able to make it out of the situation. Brandt, who had been circling around from the back, had managed to draw everyone's attention on himself for the fracture of a second – with a sudden yell that even surprised Jane, so much so that she almost hesitated.

But Ethan didn't hesitate. Knocking his head back against the armed man behind him, he broke the man's nose, thus loosening the grip around his throat just enough to make a grab for the man's gun in the process. Twisting the man's wrist, Ethan was able to direct the man's gun in a way that he could use it to fire a shot at Benji's captor. The bullet took out the man's knife along with his hand, thus giving Benji the chance to duck out of the man's hold and overpower his captor.

But the action of saving Benji had left Ethan open to another threat from his own attacker. Clearly outraged at his bleeding nose, the man – who was built like a tank and twice as large – instantly readjusted his grip on Ethan's throat, intent on finishing off Ethan by breaking his neck.

Jane's bullet was just in time to take out the man with the broken nose, before the man could reach his goal. Only when the guy fell back – dead with a shot to his head – did Jane dare to breathe again. Ethan was also breathing hard, glad to get some air back into his lungs, a silent 'Thank You' in his eyes. Benji was still pale as a ghost. And Brandt, he'd made Ethan swear not to ever scare him like that again.

In the end, Ethan had just smiled.

It was all in a days work.

And now, once more, they were going home.

Another mission completed. Another dance with death under their belts. Another scar that no one would ever see.

And as she watched Ethan sleep, she wondered once more how he did it. How he managed to keep smiling into the face of death, time and again coming out of the tangle with destiny as the winner in the end. How many more lives had Ethan Hunt left, out of the many lives he had already lived?

But as she finally felt herself slide into sleep herself, Jane got a last glimpse of something else, something that gave her hope. Just as her eyes slid closed, she saw Ethan's head slightly move again.

The man was still asleep.

But there was now a hint of a smile on his face.

And suddenly she knew. She knew, and was willing to believe with all her heart, that as long as Ethan was still able to smile, death would have to wait for all of them just a little longer.

It was with that reassuring knowledge that Jane finally went to sleep, as well.

And the only sound left in the cabin was the comforting drone of the engine of the plane that was taking them home.

That, and the sound of a soft snore coming from Benji's bunk.

But nobody minded.

They were going home.

The End


End file.
